tonight's question — one small thing for tomorrow

At the table, going around once — name one small thing you will do tomorrow. Small is the law of the question and the table enforces it kindly. "Top the class" is turned back at the border. "Sharpen all my pencils" is waved through with honours. Water the money plant. Return the borrowed comic. Learn to plait hair from the video, finally.

Everyone speaks, everyone is heard, and then — this matters — the table does nothing further. No noting down, no assigning, and tomorrow at dinner, no checking. The table is a witness, not an examiner. A sankalpa said before one's family has been given its address; whether it is kept is the sayer's own affair, and the keeping is sweeter for being unpoliced.

Children who grow up saying small intentions aloud at a safe table are practising, in miniature, one of adulthood's rarest skills: stating what you mean to do, in front of people whose opinion matters, without armour.

Tomorrow is a holiday morning. Small things fit beautifully inside it.